SCM Leaders Forum: Sandrine Torandell, L'Oréal
The SCM Leaders Forum brought together the finest minds in supply chain, manufacturing and sustainability for two days of fascinating insight and discussion.
The event, run by Industry IoT and staged at the HP Innovation Center in Barcelona, featured inspiring leaders from the likes of Bayer, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Danone, L'Oréal and McKinsey & Company.
Supply Chain Digital caught up with Sandrine Torandell, Global Supply Chain Director Europe for the Consumer Product Division at L'Oréal, who discussed the importance of adapting to the 'new normal' and the extent to which virality is factored into the company's supply chain planning.
Sandrine's supply chain responsibilities
Sandrine oversees a complex operation spanning from manufacturing to retailer relationships.
Her role encompasses both upstream manufacturing and planning as well as downstream market activities, connecting with retailers and managing order fulfilment.
"L'Oréal is, of course, the leader in beauty," says Sandrine. "My role in the global supply chain covers the upstream parts, to manufacturing, including planification and collaboration with suppliers."
She describes her position as "a kind of control tower", with S&OP localised at L'Oréal's headquarters, managing the catalogue and relations within the Europe Zone business.
This extends downstream, too, including go-to-market, connections with retailers, order-to-cash collaborations, credit and aspects of forecasting and demand.
Transformation through customer focus
During her keynote presentation at SCM Leaders Forum, Sandrine presented two major transformation programmes currently reshaping L'Oréal's supply chain and global operations.
'Customer First' aims to place client satisfaction at the forefront of all operational decisions.
The second, 'Responsiveness for Growth', focuses on enhancing agility throughout the organisation.
Sandrine adds: "It's a way to be more agile, at speed and at scale, within global operations, which is also an interesting lever for customer satisfaction."
Adapting to the new normal
Sandrine emphasises that adapting to the 'new normal' is a necessity for businesses looking to navigate a complex modern-day business landscape.
Recent years have brought unprecedented challenges to supply chains, from the COVID-19 pandemic to increasing geopolitical tensions.
"We all suffer with pandemic issues, which completely disturbed supply chain execution," continues Sandrine.
"But, we also saw positive change, such as influencers and new media, which have changed the way we operate the business."
Managing viral product demand
One of the most interesting challenges facing L'Oréal's supply chain is managing viral product demands that occur with little warning.
Social media platforms like TikTok can create sudden surges in demand that traditional planning methods simply cannot anticipate.
"When we see a shift in terms of activation from a usual media to online media, a big part of it is under control," Sandrine notes. "But, another part comes from organic activations on the new network, like TikTok, for example.
These unpredictable demand spikes require new approaches to supply chain management and planning.
"Within our Responsiveness for Growth programme, the idea is to try to measure and anticipate, but also to assess the capacity we have in end-to-end aspects – in our factory, but also with suppliers – and monitor the signals in that information to be sure we have the right answers. So, it's a nice challenge."
Stay tuned to the Supply Chain Digital website for more from Industry IoT's SCM Leaders Forum.
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